To: 3top
I can understand the problem you outlined. We never had it. Even though the springs were removed we never had a problem with the shoes sticking to the clutch drum. It might be that your lube oil was viscous and the shoes stuck due to the adhesion between the shoe face and the drum. It may also have been a factor of humidity. Where we were even though we were operating in the Arctic Ocean the humidity level was quite low. Regarding the condition of our lube oil, we changed it every 25 hours. The Coast Guard also insisted on the use of high quality lubricants. Our rotor heads were lubed with Texaco grease and were lubed every 5 hours and our engines were lubed with Texaco aviation oil. We also rotated the rotor backwards much like they do on Hughes 500s and Bells to see if the rotor spool is stuck to the casing.